[Manga Monday] Big O, Vol. 2 ★★☆☆½

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Title: Big O, Vol. 2
Series: Big O #2
Author: Hitoshi Ariga
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 216
Words: 7K

Synopsis:

We get the wrapup of the Dorothy storyline and how Dorothy comes to be part of the Smith household.

The next chapter introduces us to Angel and has Big O and Roger fighting a fleet of ghost ships, which turn out to be mostly fakes. One is a real ship and that is the one Angel has targeted so she can recover memories from it.

The 3^rd chapter deals with a cyborg killer who has just regained his memories and begins to kill again on 40 year old instructions. This introduces us to Instro, a robot pianist. He is the prime suspect and when Roger clears him, promises to teach Dorothy to play the piano.

The final chapter deals with the origins of Schwarzwald, the crazy reporter who burns up in a fire and everyone thinks is dead.

My Thoughts:

Except for the Ghost ship story, the stories follow the same path as the anime. But rather lifelessly in my opinion. Without the BAS style artwork, this mecha just doesn't have much oomph behind it.

It also appears that people can randomly/recently lose their memories or regain them. And yet memories are also stored somehow, somewhere. It is something that you can't think too hard about before it becomes obvious that the creators didn't give it much thought either.

Between chapters there are various character sketches or a full page of a character looking all action'y, etc. One of those was of Angel with her diving suit unzipped. While it didn't go beyond cheesecake territory, it just wasn't appropriate with the rest of the volume. It was grossly obvious fan service. I'm not a fan of that, so I dinged half a star.

Overall, while this isn't necessarily a bad manga, like I stated in the beginning, the life just isn't there. This is making even Season 2 of the anime seem pretty good, so once I'm done with these 6 volumes, I'll be getting rid of them in one way or another.

★★☆☆½

• All of My "Big O" Reviews (Manga and Anime)